Any examples from real life where this has been the case? Or even in cryptoverse, which coin has suddenly got adoption and still alive because the distro has finished? Does your theory have any base or just a hunch?
NXT/Ardor, back in 2013 100% of the coins were distributed to 73 early adopters in the second ever ICO right from the start (Mastercoin was the first ICO a few months earlier), then the dev (BCnxt, aka CfB of Iota fame) basically handed the project over to the community which empowered large holders to get active and 'do things' to keep the project alive, including spreading adoption.
NXT started with 73 people, 100% of coins distributed, dev concentrated on actual dev work, everything else was left to the community. It was the most beautiful disorganized clusterfuck to observe, and it most definitely was decentralised, and it was 100% the community who made it work because the distribution was completed very early, and the dev did a perfect Satoshi 2.0 and got out of the way.
If Tony finishes the distro and gets out of the way he creates a void, and motivated holders will fill it, that's decentralization in practice, relinquish control to the community.
edit: if Tony completed the distro and went into the shadows to work on code, maybe a big holder like Max from Lisk would see a 'space' for him to fill and he would get motivated to 'do something' for BB out of self interest, at the moment everything is top-down from Tony, no room for anyone else, 22% still in centralised hands causing worries.
I meant "successful projects that got adoption". How many active users are there on NXT? Like 400 daily? I wouldn't call that adoption. And what is Ardor, a fork of NXT? Why was that created? Because somebody disagreed with the NXT vision?
Why does Tony need to go away so Max could replace him? This just doesn't make any sense. It is not a wife-swap TV show, both founders have their own projects to work on. And I don't understand why one needs to go away in order for others to contribute? If you don't agree where it is going, create a fork and do it the way you think it is right.
Instead of thinking that 22% is still yet to distribute, think about that more than 50% is already distributed. If that wasn't problem when nothing was distributed then how is that now suddenly a problem? Distribution will continue based on what is best for mass adoption and from the amount of current active users, Bitcoin distribution was not the best for mass adoption.